Beyond keeping active: Concomitants of being a volunteer in old-old age

Dov Shmotkin*, Tzvia Blumstein, Baruch Modan

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

108 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study examines concomitants of volunteering in the context of other lifestyle activities. Investigating formal volunteering in old-old age, the authors analyzed data of 148 volunteers versus 1,195 nonvolunteers in a national sample of the Israeli Jewish population aged 75-94. As hypothesized, being a volunteer related (whether as a cause or effect) to more positive functioning on psychosocial markers and prospectively resulted in reduced mortality risk even when other activity outlets (physical activity, everyday activities, having a hobby) were controlled. These findings suggest that the benefits of volunteering in late life are not reducible to those of other activities.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)602-607
Number of pages6
JournalPsychology and Aging
Volume18
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2003

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